This will force them to go back and actually write a full bill that includes the changes that Republicans have been talking about for years now. It'll take longer, but that's also not a bad thing.

It's been seven years.

Seven.

S.

E.

V.

E.

N.

That's a long time to come up with something. How much longer is it going to take to have a real solution? Repealing or replacing or modifying or doing whatever to Obamacare has been a big promise for a number of years. What have the conservative think-tanks been spending their time on?

Realistically I hate to say it, but I'm agreeing with Trump on this one. If you can't solve the problem, move on. There's problems you can solve, and there's a budget fight ahead. I get that it's a complicated issue, that there's a lot of division on how to handle health care, and that getting consensus is difficult. How long do you wait for that though? Would think that it's more likely that given the amount of time they had, and the importance of the issue, that there simply isn't a popular enough consensus solution available. Hence we get what we saw last week.

Paul Ryan and House leaders are desperately rewriting swaths of the health care bill for tomorrow's vote (with no chance of being read much less scored by the CBO) while Trump tries to horse trade pet projects with reluctant conservatives to buy their votes on the bill.

I'll wait on the appropriate outrage from the "Ho ho! Pelosi said we have to pass the law to know what's in it..." and "OMG Cornhusker Kickback!!" people. I'll probably be waiting a long time, of course.

someproteinguy wrote:

Looks like the vote has been postponed to give time for people to go through with those indirect threats. Someone's mom's bakery is going to get fined because they placed a chalkboard sign on the sidewalk too close to the curb methinks.

I'm assuming a "long time" includes "later today"? Sorry, just found this sequence to be hilarious.

TBH I don't know what Joph was thinking. It only takes a few minutes to write a citation, and grandma has never been the type to let bills linger on the kitchen counter until the due date.

I think I'll go back to my original point on page one where I mentioned how if the GOP moves forward quickly it's all about them doing the same "pass it before we read it" thing the Dems did with Obamacare,

People keep attacking the DEMS for rushing to pass the bill as if any GOP was willing to work with them to pass or enhance it. The GOP has done nothing but attack the ACA and vote to defund it. Looking back, they made the best strategic move.

Gbaji wrote:

but if they have disagreements and questions and push the bill back and forth to make changes, it's "OMG! The GOP is in disarray and can't even agree among themselves!!!".

If it were 6 or 7 years ago, you would have a point. However, it only shows that they never had a serious plan, because if they did, they would have worked out the kinks throughout those seven years.

I think I'll go back to my original point on page one where I mentioned how if the GOP moves forward quickly it's all about them doing the same "pass it before we read it" thing the Dems did with Obamacare,

People keep attacking the DEMS for rushing to pass the bill as if any GOP was willing to work with them to pass or enhance it.

Well. With a definition of "willing to work with them to pass or enhance it" that was restricted to "vote yes for what we want with no discussion or debate", then yes. The GOP was more than willing to work to enhance the ACA, and provided a number of proposals. All of which were rejected in committee and never got even remotely put into any form of the bill, much less anywhere near being voted on.

There's a legitimate point at which you realize that the other guy isn't listening to anything you are saying and the only response is to just throw your hands up, walk away, and make the other guy eat his own stupid mistakes. Which is exactly what happened here.

Quote:

The GOP has done nothing but attack the ACA and vote to defund it. Looking back, they made the best strategic move.

Yup. And a huge part of this was the very simple fact that it was a really really really terrible law. If the ACA was roundly popular, and had actually made health care more affordable, and actually allowed people to keep their doctors, and their coverage, and even maybe increased health care options instead of decreasing them, than the GOP could attack it all they wanted, and attempt to defund it all they wanted, and the broad public response would be to condemn them for doing so.

The fact that the opposite actually happened suggests that a heck of a lot more people are unhappy with the ACA than the other way around. That's not cheap politics, or some kind of trick. That's a "side" of our politics actually listening to what the people want rather than attempting to ram what they think it best for the people down their throats.

We're not even talking about the ACA being just a little bit unpopular. It's "probably a decent part of why we got Trump as president" unpopular. So yeah. Thanks Dems! Gah!

Quote:

Gbaji wrote:

but if they have disagreements and questions and push the bill back and forth to make changes, it's "OMG! The GOP is in disarray and can't even agree among themselves!!!".

If it were 6 or 7 years ago, you would have a point. However, it only shows that they never had a serious plan, because if they did, they would have worked out the kinks throughout those seven years.

You don realize that the members of congress, even within a party, change every couple years, right? I mean, you'd have a point if the entire GOP delegation to congress was static the whole time, and thus could all sit together and work on a plan the whole time. But that's not the case. I'm sure they could have come up with an alternative health care bill 7 years ago, that the GOP members at the time would pass. But then they'd have to make changes to it every two years to make it pass the new makeup of the house and senate.

I get that it's easy and cheap rhetoric to go with the whole "they had all this time to come up with something!" argument, but the reality is that it makes a lot more sense to wait until you do have the numbers to pass something before you start actually writing the legislation down. Because until you have those numbers, and have some sense of what those numbers will agree on, you can't accurately write something that will pass. And yeah, Ryan's plan is a good example of this. He proceeded based on what I honestly saw as an older/simpler attempt to end run around the ACA. One that maybe would have flown 4-5 years ago with the GOP makeup at the time, but isn't sufficient for the crop of GOP members in office today.

Times change. The makeup of the congress changes. The demands of those offices change. This is exactly why the correct solution should have involved starting from scratch, not based on what we could/should/would have done 7 years ago, but based on what we should be doing *now*. Even the fact that many aspects of the ACA have already been put in place, changes the equation in terms of how you go about "repealing and replacing" it. Before the ACA takes effect, it's easy. Just repeal it and no one's affected. As more parts of the ACA have an impact on our health care system, you can't just do that simple solution anymore.

Ryan miscalculated that, and it was the right call for the GOP to reject his overly simplistic attempt. Again, this is how the process should work. The GOP certainly could have just followed their leadership like the Dems did back in 2009/2010 and just pass whatever bill was put in front of them. That they didn't, speaks volumes IMO.

I'm sure they could have come up with an alternative health care bill 7 years ago, that the GOP members at the time would pass.

They didn't, which is kind of the point.

ALSO: If you think "wait 'till the last second" is better then "planning ahead" then I guess it's a good thing you are not a lawmaker. Or a parent.

Edited, Apr 5th 2017 8:28pm by Bijou

____________________________

Jophiel wrote:

Last week, I saw a guy with an eyepatch and a gold monocle and pointed him out to Flea as one of the most awesome things I've seen, ever. If I had an eyepatch and a gold monocle, I'd always dress up as Mr. Peanut but with a hook hand and a parrot.

I'm sure they could have come up with an alternative health care bill 7 years ago, that the GOP members at the time would pass.

They didn't, which is kind of the point.

So they should have spent the time and energy actually writing the legislation itself, knowing that it would never come to a vote, and that they'd almost certainly have to completely re-write it when/if they ever do have the numbers for a vote? That's... dumb. There's a huge difference in time/effort/money between writing up some position documents on what you'd like a law to do in principle, and actually writing the legislation. You don't spend that time/effort/money writing legislation until you, you know, actually have the ability to put it to a vote.

Quote:

ALSO: If you think "wait 'till the last second" is better then "planning ahead" then I guess it's a good thing you are not a lawmaker. Or a parent.

Except that "wait to plan the details until you know you can actually do something with them" is a pretty sound way to go through life. I'm reasonably certain that you usually wait to get hotel reservations until you know that you (and the rest of your family/group) have time off to go and can afford the trip, right? In all probability, you may discuss the idea of said trip long before that point though, right? Same deal. There's a huge gap between "let's figure out what kind of vacation we'd like to go on" and actually planning the trip, setting the dates and itinerary, paying for reservations, buying airline tickets, etc. And yes, you always wait to do those last steps until you know you have the ability to go. You do the specific planning as late as possible, exactly because you don't want to have things change between when you're committed and when you actually go. It's called being flexible. And it's perfectly normal.

Most people wait until their child actually applies for and is accepted to a college before they start filling out the aid forms and picking a meal plan, housing plan, etc (and even deciding which, of the schools they got accepted to, they're going to attend). Right? You could start doing that when they're in grade school, but that would be strange. But, you'd never criticize a parent for wanting their kid to "go to college", despite not yet having worked out all those details. I mean, you're trying to make it out like something we all do all the time is somehow strange or unusual.

It's not. And neither is waiting to write the details of a piece of legislation until you have the ability to pass it unusual either.

Of course, you are correct that there is political value in presenting the idea of a proposed law ahead of time. I'm not denying that at all. However, that does not mean that it's not prudent to wait to see what the political landscape actually looks like at the time before putting pen to paper and writing that law. That's just smart IMO.

Most people wait until their child actually applies for and is accepted to a college before they start filling out the aid forms

No. You are wrong on this one.

____________________________

Jophiel wrote:

Last week, I saw a guy with an eyepatch and a gold monocle and pointed him out to Flea as one of the most awesome things I've seen, ever. If I had an eyepatch and a gold monocle, I'd always dress up as Mr. Peanut but with a hook hand and a parrot.

So they should have spent the time and energy actually writing the legislation itself, knowing that it would never come to a vote?

Why would a GOP controlled congress not vote on their own legislation? (2010)

____________________________

Jophiel wrote:

Last week, I saw a guy with an eyepatch and a gold monocle and pointed him out to Flea as one of the most awesome things I've seen, ever. If I had an eyepatch and a gold monocle, I'd always dress up as Mr. Peanut but with a hook hand and a parrot.

You don realize that the members of congress, even within a party, change every couple years, right?

Not all of them (not even most) and not most of the leadership. This is an extremely lame excuse for the GOP failing to produce a workable plan with seven years notice.

Let's be honest here: They didn't even have a framework for a workable plan. The devil wasn't in the details, it was in the fact that one significant faction of the GOP is screaming "REPEAL OR NOTHING!!!" and another significant faction is saying "Oh shit, when 40% of my base in my district loses their insurance, I'm fucked."

Most people wait until their child actually applies for and is accepted to a college before they start filling out the aid forms and picking a meal plan, housing plan, etc (and even deciding which, of the schools they got accepted to, they're going to attend). Right?

Most people don't tell their kids all through their schooling that they have the money to pay for their kid's college of choice and once it's time to actually send them off just shrug their shoulders and say that it was too hard to pay for it.

____________________________

George Carlin wrote:

I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.

"Mom! Dad! I've graduated and am ready for college! You told me for the last seven years we had a plan for this, right?"

"Uh, sure... the, uh, plan was that, you know, it would, uh... happen. I sorta wanted to do it this way but your mom says it has to be that way and, uh, I guess we never actually discussed it until ten minutes ago and so... uh.... good luck!"

Most people wait until their child actually applies for and is accepted to a college before they start filling out the aid forms

No. You are wrong on this one.

Eh. Ok. You can "start" filling them out a bit ahead of time. But not much earlier (Oct 1st the year before is the earliest you can file). Um... you still do have to have at least a list of schools you think you will be attending though. The point I was going after was that the aid itself (ie: the details) isn't finalized (can't be finalized) until you're accepted to a school, existing tuition is known, all grants and scholarships and other forms of aid are included, etc. The money is sent to the school on your behalf. They have to know where to send the check, and how much to send.

Crappy analogy, I admit, but I was just listing off a set of things to illustrate the point that in most things in life you normally start with a broad set of objectives and then narrow down the details as you get closer to actually doing whatever it is you're doing. That's "normal". And yeah, passing legislation is similar. You start out with a broad set of objectives, and then narrow them down to specific details as you get closer to vote time.

And in response to Joph's point, the makeup of the GOP in terms of voting members has changed significantly in the past 8 years, and specifically the voting blocks within the GOP has changed. More importantly, the impact of the ACA has changed over time as more of it has gone from "something that will happen if we don't stop it", to "something that is happening now, but we can still change X, Y, or Z", to "something that has happened, and a number of additional effects have occurred as a result, and any change we make now has to take those into account".

A legislative change that would have worked 6-7 years ago wont work today. So no, it's not as simple as saying they had all that time to write a law. The needs of that law have changed continually over the entire period of time in question.

Lame excuse still. The GOP may have changed but the most significant change was the Tea Party take-over in 2010.

That would be Freedom Caucus, and 2015. Which kinda puts a massive gaping hole in the "OMG! They had 6/7 years to write the legislation" claim.

Quote:

So, uh... six years to plan instead of seven? Got me there I guess. More to the point, that six years was spent insisting that there were great awesome plans for health care a'comin.

Wrong. More like maybe a year and a half. And it's not like the GOP in the house and senate had any greater knowledge that they'd be writing legislation that would have to pass a Republican president instead of a Democratic one than the rest of us (which is pretty much zero if you recall).

I get that in a perfect world, politicians would just write the legislation they think is best and move forward with it, in some kind of "pass or bust!" scenario. But that's not really how our system works. You write a version of that legislation that you think you can pass. If I were to speculate, I'd say that the GOP members assumed that Clinton would be president right now, and any changes they made to the ACA would just be changes, not full repeal/replace. Which explains why they didn't have a fully written piece of legislation in hand. Having won the presidency, the leadership chose to go with the quick route of reconciliation. Basically, what they thought they could get through with Clinton in office. The more conservative members of the house decided that with a Republican in the White House they could and should pass a more sweeping change and thus rejected it.

It's not the GOP rejecting a change. They're pushing for more change, now that they believe they have the power to make that greater change. It's not an act coming from a position of weakness, but a realization that they have more strength and support than they thought they were going to have, and thus should actually use that to push for something more than a half measure. If you interpreted the vote as some sort of lack of support for a repeal of the ACA, you totally missed what was actually going on.

If you didn't use crappy analogies, you'd get less flack. Just sayin'.

gbaji wrote:

Which explains why they didn't have a fully written piece of legislation in hand.

They didn't have anything which is, again, the point. They couldn't come up with even a basic framework for something different since the ACA passed? Really? Maybe you GOP folk should get more competent and concerned people on your team.

____________________________

Jophiel wrote:

Last week, I saw a guy with an eyepatch and a gold monocle and pointed him out to Flea as one of the most awesome things I've seen, ever. If I had an eyepatch and a gold monocle, I'd always dress up as Mr. Peanut but with a hook hand and a parrot.